Chapter 38
A Sudden Chill
* * *
The blazing sun still climbed behind him, and Mat was glad his broad-brimmed hat gave a little shade on his face. This Altaran forest was winter-bare and more than winter-brown, with pines and leatherleafs and other evergreens looking sere, and oak and ash and sweetgum naked. Noon yet to come, the worst heat beyond that, and already the day was like riding through an oven. His coat was slung atop his saddlebags, but sweat made his fine linen shirt cling. Pips’ hooves crunched on dead ferns and fallen leaves thick atop the leaf mold, and the Band moved in a crackle from the forest floor. Few birds appeared, quick flashes between the branches, and not a squirrel. There were flies, though, and bitemes, as if this were the heart of summer instead of less than a month to the Feast of Lights. No different from what he had seen back on the Erinin, really, but finding it here too made him uneasy. Was the whole world really burning up?
Aviendha strode along beside Pips with her bundle on her back, apparently unconcerned by dying trees or biting flies, and making considerably less noise than the horse despite her skirts. Her eyes scanned the surrounding trees as though she did not trust the Band’s scouts and flankers to keep them out of an ambush. She had not accepted a ride once, which he had not expected anyway, seeing how Aiel felt about riding, but she had made no trouble either, unless sharpening her knife every time they halted could be considered provocative. There had been the incident with Olver, of course. Riding the high-stepping gray gelding Mat had found him among the remounts, Olver kept a wary eye on her. He had tried to stick his belt knife in her the second night, shouting about Aiel killing his father. Of course, she only took it away from him, but even after Mat cuffed him and tried to explain the difference between Shaido and other Aiel — something Mat was not all that sure he understood himself — Olver glared at her constantly. He did not like Aiel. For Aviendha’s part, Olver seemed to make her uneasy, which Mat did not understand at all.
The trees stood tall enough to have allowed a breeze to stir under the sparse canopy overhead, but the Red Hand banner hung limp, and so did the two he had dug out once Rand put them through that gateway into a night-covered meadow, a Dragon banner, the red-and-gold shape hidden in white folds, and one of those the Band called Al’Thor’s Banner, the ancient Aes Sedai symbol also thankfully wrapped inside. A grizzled senior bannerman had the Red Hand, a fellow with narrow eyes and more scars than Daerid who insisted on actually
carrying the banner a part of each day, which few bannermen did. Talmanes and Daerid had supplied second squadmen for the other two, fresh-faced young men who had shown themselves steady enough for a little responsibility.
Three days they had come across Altara, three days in forest without sight of a single Dragonsworn — or anyone else for that matter — and Mat hoped to stretch their loneliness at least through this fourth before reaching Salidar. Aside from Aes Sedai, there was the problem of how to keep Aviendha from Elayne’s throat. He had few doubts why she kept sharpening that knife; the edge glittered like gemstones. He was very much afraid he was going to end taking the Aiel woman to Caemlyn under guard, with the bloody Daughter-Heir demanding he hang her every step of the way. Rand and his bloody women! In Mat’s view, anything that slowed the Band and kept him from the stew he expected in Salidar was to the good. Halting early and marching late helped. So did the supply wagons at the rear, slow as they were in the forest. But the Band could ride only so slowly. All too soon Vanin was sure to find something.
As if thinking his name had been a summons, the fat scout appeared through the trees ahead with four riders. He had gone out before dawn with six.
Mat raised a clenched fist, signaling a halt, and murmurs passed down the column. His first order on leaving the gateway had been “no drums, no trumpets, no flutes and no bloody singing,” and if there had been a few glum faces in the beginning, after the first day in that wooded terrain, where you could never see clearly more than a hundred paces and seldom so far, no one objected at all.
Resting his spear across his saddle, Mat waited until, Vanin pulled up and casually knuckled his forehead. “You found them?”
The balding man leaned to one side in his saddle to spit through a gap in his teeth. He was sweating so much he looked to be melting. “I found them. Eight or ten miles west. There’s Warders in those woods. I saw one take Mar; just came out nothing in one of those cloaks and swept him out of the saddle. Roughed him considerably, but didn’t kill him, though. I expect Ladwin didn’t show up for the same reason.”
“So they know we’re here.” Mat breathed heavily through his nose. He did not expect either man would hold back anything from Warders, much less Aes Sedai. But then, the Aes Sedai had to know sooner or later. He had just wanted it to be later. He slapped at a bluefly, but it buzzed away leaving a spot of blood on his wrist. “How many?”
Vanin spat again. “More than I ever figured to see. I got into the village afoot, and there was Aes Sedai faces all over. Two, three hundred, maybe. Maybe four. I didn’t want to be too obvious, counting.” Before that shock had time to settle, the man delivered another. “They got an army, too. Camped to the north, mainly. More than you got. Maybe twice as many.”
Talmanes and Nalesean and Daerid had ridden up during that, sweating and swatting flies and bitemes. “Did you hear?” Mat asked, and they nodded soberly. His battle luck was all very well, yet being outnumbered two to one, with hundreds of Aes Sedai thrown into the bargain, could strain any luck. “We aren’t here to fight,” he reminded them, but their long faces remained. For that matter, the remark did not make him feel better either. What counted was whether the Aes Sedai wanted this army of theirs to fight.
“Prepare the Band to be attacked,” he ordered. “Clear as much ground as you can, and use the logs to make barricades.” Talmanes grimaced nearly as hard as Nalesean; they liked to be in the saddle and moving when they fought. “Think. There may be Warders watching us right now.” He was surprised to see Vanin nod and glance off to their right in a significant way, “If they see us readying to defend, then plainly we don’t mean to attack. It might make them decide to leave us alone, and if it doesn’t, at least we’re ready.” That got through, to Talmanes faster than Nalesean. Daerid had been nodding from the start.
Giving his oiled beard a twist, Nalesean muttered, “What do you intend to do then? Just sit and wait for them?”
“That’s what you’re going to do,” Mat told him. Burn Rand and his “maybe fifty Aes Sedai”! Bum him and his “loom a little; intimidate them”! Waiting right there until somebody came out from the village to ask who they were and what they wanted seemed a very good idea. No ta’veren twisting this time. Any battle was going to have to come to him; he was not about to walk into it.
“They are that way?” Aviendha said, pointing. Without waiting for an answer, she settled her bundle on her back and began striding west.
Mat stared after her. Bloody Aiel. Some Warder would probably try to take her too, and have his head handed to him. Or maybe not, Warders being Warders; if she tried to put a knife in one of those, he might just hurt her. Besides which, if she got to Elayne and began hair-pulling over Rand, or worse, stuck a knife in her . . . She was moving along quickly, almost trotting, eager to reach Salidar. Blood and bloody ashes!
“Talmanes, you have the command until I get back, but you don’t stir unless somebody jumps on the Band with both boots. These four will tell you what you might have to face. Vanin, you’re with me. Olver, stay close to Daerid, in case he needs messages carried. You can teach him to play Snakes and Foxes,” he added with a grin at Daerid. “He tells me he’d like to learn.” Daerid’s jaw dropped, but Mat had already moved on. A fine thing if he ended up hauled into Salidar by a Warder with a lump on his head. How to reduce the chance of that? The banners caught his eye. “You stay here,” he told the grizzled bannerman. “You other two come with me. And keep those things furled.”
His strange little party caught up to Aviendha quickly. If anything could convince the Warders to let them through unhindered, one look should. No threat in a woman and four men, and obviously making no effort to avoid notice, not carrying two banners. He checked the second squadmen. There was still no breeze, but they held the banners clutched to the staffs. Their faces were tight. Only a fool would want to ride in among Aes Sedai and have those spread in a sudden breeze.
Aviendha glanced at him sideways, then tried to push his boot out of the stirrup. “Let me up,” she ordered curtly.
Why under the Light did she want to ride now? Well, he was not going to have her scrambling up and very likely knocking him out of the saddle in the process; he had seen Aiel get on a horse once or twice.
Slapping another fly, he leaned down and caught her hand. “Hold on,” he said, and heaved her up behind him with a grunt. She was nearly as tall as he was, and solid to boot. “Just put your arm around my waist.” She only gave him a look and twisted about awkwardly until she sat astride, legs bared above the knee and not at all concerned with it. Nice legs, but he would not have involved himself with another Aiel woman even if she was not moonstruck over Rand.
After a time, she spoke to his back. “The boy, Olver. The Shaido killed his father?”
Mat nodded without looking around at her. Would he even see any Warders before it was too late? Leading the way, Vanin rode slumped like a sack of suet as always, but he had a sharp eye out.
“His mother died of hunger?” Aviendha asked.
“That, or maybe sickness.” Warders wore those cloaks that could blend into anything. You could walk past one without seeing him. “Olver wasn’t too clear, and I didn’t press him. He buried her himself. Why? Do you think you owe him something since Aiel cost him his family?”
“Owe?” She sounded startled. “I killed neither, and if I had, they were treekillers. How would I have toh?’ Without a pause she went on as if continuing in the same line. “You do not care for him properly, Mat Cauthon. I know men know nothing about raising children, but he is too young to spend all of his time with grown men.”